Marazan

{{short description|1926 novel by Nevil Shute}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}} {{infobox book |  | name = Marazan | title_orig = | translator = | image = File:Marazan.jpg | caption = First edition | author = Nevil Shute | cover_artist = | country = England | language = English | series = | genre = Thriller novel | publisher = Cassell | release_date = 1926 | media_type = Print (Hardback & Paperback) | pages = | preceded_by = | followed_by = }}

'''''Marazan''''' is the first published novel by the British author Nevil Shute. It was originally published in 1926 by Cassell & Co, then republished in 1951 by William Heinemann. The events of the novel occur, in part, around the Isles of Scilly.

==Plot summary == Philip Stenning is a commercial pilot, trained during the First World War. After his engine fails, he crashes and is rescued by an escaped convict, Denis Compton, who turns out to have been framed for embezzlement by his Italian half-brother, Baron Rodrigo Mattani, who is smuggling drugs into England.<ref>[http://www.nevilshute.org/Reviews/marazan.php Nevil Shute Foundation: Marazan], accessed 30 January 2011.</ref>

The story tells how Stenning plays a key role in breaking that drug ring. It involves episodes characteristic of Shute: flying, small boat sailing, and a love story.

Stenning was a major character in Shute's first (unpublished at the time ) novel ''Stephen Morris''. Stenning also crops up as a comparatively minor character in Shute's next two novels ''So Disdained'' (1928) and ''Lonely Road'' (1932).

==Author's later reflections== In his autobiography ''Slide Rule'', Shute recalls writing the book twice over and rewriting large portions a third time. He wrote as a relaxation from his regular work of designing air ships.<ref>{{Citation | author1=Shute, Nevil | title=Slide rule : the autobiography of an engineer | publication-date=1954 | publisher=Heinemann | url=http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/6061199 | accessdate=30 October 2016|pages=42, 49 }}</ref>

His first two unpublished novels (''Stephen Morris'' and ''Pilotage'') were typed on an old Blick portable typewriter: he said ''it may not be quite a coincidence that my first published novel ''Marazan'' was the first that I wrote on a brand new typewriter bought out of my earnings as an engineer''.<ref>{{Citation | author1=Shute, Nevil | title=Slide rule : the autobiography of an engineer | publication-date=1954 | publisher=Heinemann | url=http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/6061199 | accessdate=30 October 2016|pages=49 }}</ref>

==See also== * Isles of Scilly

==References== {{reflist}}

==External links== * {{FadedPage|id=20140337|name=Marazan}}

Category:1926 British novels Category:1926 English-language novels Category:British thriller novels Category:Novels by Nevil Shute Category:Aviation novels Category:Cassell (publisher) books Category:1926 debut novels